


Magic

by marty_mcfly_jr



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-05-19 14:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19358851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marty_mcfly_jr/pseuds/marty_mcfly_jr
Summary: Prompt: Courtship, Dragon(s), Library, Papafire, Sea





	Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowed_Oracle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowed_Oracle/gifts).



I was floating in a circular room. The walls were made up entirely of bookshelves. No, wait. I wasn’t floating. I was standing on a ladder. I was surrounded by my favorite books among millions of other intriguing titles. I was in a book-heaven.

There was a small lizard under my ladder urging me to choose a book. No, wait, the lizard was not that small. It was just a little bigger than I was, but he looked small and cute from way up here on the tall ladder. I stretched out my arm to pick a book, but before I reached it, I woke up.

My joyous laughter was still echoing in my ears when a nurse opened the door to my hospital room.

Right.

I was in a hospital. It appeared that I had some sort of amnesia. I didn’t even remember my name.

“Bell,” I said out loud, repeating what everyone kept calling me.

“That’s right,” the nurse said encouragingly, as she walked back out, “your name is Belle. Just like in ‘Beauty and the Beast’!”

Oh. So it’s Belle. Who would name me that? My parents, I guess. Why didn’t they ever come to visit me? Did I have parents? The only person who really seemed to care about me had called me yesterday to tell me that he was dying.

I felt so alone.

I shouldn’t feel sad about the death of a man that I barely knew, should I?

But I must have known him before I forgot my life.

Suddenly, the man I was thinking about walked in looking as alive as he did the last time he came.

“You’re alive!” I looked at him with surprise.

“Indeed, I am.” He answered, “I imagine my last phone call was a bit alarming.”

It wasn’t ‘a bit’ and it wasn’t just alarming!

“Yeah. Sounded like you were on your deathbed,” I said managing to sound calm about it.

“I’m really sorry if I startled you.” He said apologetically, “I know that you have no memory of me. But my feelings for you are real. And I just needed you to know that in case… well in case I died.”

I felt my stomach getting dislocated. So we really _were_ … friends… before I lost my memory.

” I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, “and I could tell your feelings were true.

He looked really surprised, and… was that hope in his voice when he asked, “You could?”

“I have a sense about people,” I said, trying to sort out my own feelings about this very handsome stranger. “I can’t explain how, but I… I could just tell.”

“So, you believe we know each other?” Mr. Gold asked looking at me hopefully. 

“I believe that whatever caused me to forget myself, means that I have a past, and… that past probably included you.”

He looked at me and then I asked him, “do you think I can ever be cured, can I ever remember who I was?”

“Let’s get out of this hospital and find out,” he said holding out his hand for me to take.

I grabbed his hand and jumped off the bed. “Let’s go!” I said.

“Don’t we need to talk to someone about getting discharged?”

“I don’t care. I want out of here.” I said, and pulled him out of the room with me.

“So my name is Belle?” I asked when we were outside.

“Yes,” he said, looking sideways at me as we hurried away from the hospital, as if we were criminals escaping capture.

“What’s your name?”

“M-Mr. Gold,” he answered.

“Really.”

“When you remember who you are, all will be clear.”

“Your name?”

“Yes, that too,” he said.

“When I, uh… when I was injured… this is gonna sound crazy. I remember you healing me.”

“With magic,” he said.

I stopped in my tracks. “No,” I said. “No, no, no. I know I hit my head or something, and I forgot who I am, but I am not crazy. There’s no such thing as magic.”

He looked at me, “you don’t have to be crazy to believe in magic,” he said.

I suddenly felt very scared. What if, I thought, what if I really _was_ crazy? What if I’ve _always_ been crazy, even before I forgot who I was? Maybe this man was my caretaker? Why won’t he give me his name?

“What you saw was real,” he said. “Magic really exists.”

“You’re just saying it so that I won’t start screaming like I did before.” I said, “You’re feeling sorry for me.”

“All will be clear-“

“Clear that I am crazy!” I interrupted him, “I see things that are not real!”

“Oh, no! No, you’re not crazy. You’ve been through a lot. The accident, drugs… Let’s just focus on rediscovering some of your memories. Do you want to take a walk around town? I will tell you a little about yourself.”

“No, tell me about _you_ first, ” I said.

****

We walked up to a hotel room and Mr. Gold knocked on one of the doors.

“Why are you here?” A man said when he opened the door and saw us.

“My son,” he introduced Neal to me.

“You’re unreal, you know that?” Neal was not impressed, “You spend years looking for me. I come to town, you disappear.”

“I was busy babysitting Snow!” Mr. Gold interrupted indignantly.

“You haven’t even bothered to meet Tamara.” Neal continued, ignoring the interruption.

 

“Why should I concern myself with her?”

 

“We’re getting married!” Neal pointed out. He looked like he was about to say, ‘doh’ but he stopped himself.

 

“That’s never gonna last. Not as long as you carry a torch for Emma,” Mr. Gold said.

“Oh don’t talk to me about Emma! She’ll never want me after what you caused her pure-hearted mother to do!”

“Emma’s parents are not as nice as you think!” Mr. Gold shot back, “you don’t know what they did to Mal!”

But the door was already closed.

“Bae- Neal…”

“Who is Mal?” I asked and Mr. Gold jumped. I think he forgot that I was with him.

“What did Emma’s pure-hearted parents do to Mal?”

“Belle, I will introduce you to the town’s sheriff. Her name is Emma.”

“Your son’s girlfriend?”

“I’m not sure anymore,” he said shaking his head sadly. “I will talk to her about a dragon that she slayed. I don’t want you to think that you’re hearing things. She really did slay a dragon.”

“So… you mean that figuratively?” I was starting to feel panicked again.

“Look, Belle, come with me. Don’t worry. You will see that everyone knows about magic, because they see it all the time. In fact, Emma had a very hard time believing it at first.

“And when she did – she slayed a dragon?” I asked, wondering if that was a right-of-passage of some sort.

“Only because she had to. Don’t worry,” he said, somehow understanding exactly what was concerning me, “dragons are very rare.”

******

Emma greeted us cordially and offered us a seat.

“Do you remember that dragon you killed,” Mr. Gold did not waste any time on niceties, “to get the true love potion that would bring magic to Storybrooke?”

“I remember,” Emma said helping me to a comfortable chair. She seemed to be used to Gold’s abrupt manner. “What about it?”

“Her name is Maleficent,” Mr. Gold said, “and she lost her child. Will you come with us out of Storybrooke and find her? No one else can leave.”

“Wait a minute, the dragon is a person? But I killed it!”

“It… it. Now you are being rude.” Mr. Gold teased.

“Well, isn’t she dead?”

“In dragon form. I can bring her back in human form.”

“Will she be able to come with us? To find her daughter?”

“No. She will just help us by pricking her finger on the magic globe.”

*****

The three of us went into an elevator and took it all the way down into a cave-like cellar.

I was shocked to see Mr. Gold resurrect a nice-looking woman from the ground.

Was I still dreaming? Was I inside a book? Was I actually crazy? Were the people I was seeing real?

“Welcome back, Mal,” Mr. Gold said to her, and then he turned to me, “you remember Belle.”

I looked at this Emma, the sheriff. She seemed to believe what she was seeing. A woman had just been ressurected and the sheriff didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Maybe everything that’s happening is an hallucination, I thought, I may be _that_ crazy. I was standing there and thinking about how crazy I was, and instead of becoming hysterical and screaming like I did the first time I was seeing things, I decided that I will give in to this craziness.

I was crazy. That was already established in my mind. Only the craziness was not just limited to me. Everything around me was just as crazy. If this was a dream, I decided to just enjoy it while it lasts. This was better than the best book I’ve read.

The best book I’ve read…

Did I remember any book I read before losing my memory?

“What are you going to do to me?” Mal seemed to fear Mr. Gold

“For your pathetic attempt to kidnap Belle? That’s beneath my notice. It’s beneath Belle’s notice, isn’t it Belle? Do you even remember this woman,” Mr. Gold looked at me and winked.

“No,” I said truthfully. I was quite enjoying this game.

“Can she really turn into a dragon,” I asked.

“Do you want her to demonstrate?” Mr. Gold asked me.

“Sure,” I said. What the hey, I thought. If I’m dreaming, there’s going to be a dragon in my dream too.

“And then everything will be forgiven?” Mal asked.

“More than that,” Mr. Gold answered, ” I have a surprise for you.”

“What’s the surprise,” Mal eyed him suspiciously.

“A magic globe that can locate any blood relative that you seek.”

“My baby,” Mal whispered, and she looked at Mr. Gold hopefully, “can it find my baby?”

“It can,” he said. “Though, I doubt your child is still a baby.”

“What’s the price?”

“You will put in a good word for me. Go talk to my son-“

“You have a _son_?”

“Yes, and you can go explain to him how you lost your child. I want him to know that everyone makes mistakes.”

“You can’t come with us anyway because if you do you’ll forget who you are,” Emma said kindly.

Emma turned, prepared to leave with us when I stopped her.

“Hey,” I said, (in my dream – I would never behave this way in real life… would I?) “She didn’t turn into a dragon for me.”

“That’s right Mal,” Mr. Gold said.

Mal spun around majestically. Nothing happened. She spun again.

“Wha-“

“Ah,” Mr. Gold said, “right, Emma killed that part of you.”

Emma looked horrified and immediately proceeded to mumble a stream of apologies toward Mal.

“Oh, stop apologizing and Let’s go find her offspring. I promised my girlfriend a dragon!”

Girlfriend?

Suddenly, I felt like I was zooming down on a roller coaster. My stomach was still up there somewhere.

“My child might still have the ability to turn,” Mal nodded in agreement.

She pricked her finger on the magic globe that Mr. Gold conjured, and smiled dreamily.

“Let’s go,” Mr. Gold said to Emma, and held out an arm for me to take. Then turning to Mal, he said, “when you talk to my son, you don’t have to mention anything about your past of burning villages. Keep yourself sympathetic. You already look the part.”

*******

“We’re going to find that baby even if we have to swim across the sea for it!” Emma vowed fervently when we were in the car. Emma seemed ro feel very guilty about what she did to Mal.

“What’s the big deal,” Mr. Gold brushed her off in annoyance, “she is alive! She is just less magnificent. No need to feel bad about that.”

He leaned in to me and whispered, “there’s a better reason for Emma to feel guilty about Mal’s baby, but it’s also not her fault.”

I was intrigued, and I told him so. Normally, I would never gossip about a woman’s parents while sitting in the same car, but I was sure that none of it was really happening…

The story he whispered to me was fascinating and definately fictional.

*******

The baby we were looking for turned out to be a woman in her thirties named Lily.

Emma was shocked to find that she had known Lily from childhood.

“Lily?” Emma looked completely shocked. And so did Lily as she too cried, “Emma?”

And this was how I knew for sure, without a doubt, that I was inside a strange dream: Lily turned to Emma and told her the same _exact_ story that Mr. Gold whispered to me in the car.

“When I met you, Emma,” Lily said, “it was as if I was finally seeing some light. When you left me, I kept stalking you. I didn’t understand why. All I new in my life was darkness. When stalking you, it was like sitting in the darkest dark looking out a teeny window where someone else was out there, surrounded by love and light, and I was not able to enter!”

Emma was too upset to argue. She just asked, “what light?”

Lily laughed bitterly. “You met a wonderful man, someone you thought you’d never have. Remember we dreamt together about who we want to settle with? You wanted a house on the sea shore? He was ready to move to Tallahassee with you! You were going to live on the beach.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Emma bemoaned quietly, “he left me.”

“To give you the chance to find your stupid parents!” Lily wailed, “Appreciate the sacrifice he made for your sake.”

“By sending me to jail?” Emma howled back.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Lily snapped, “you’re too spoiled. I _lived_ in jail. Jail was my house. _Now_ I know why! _YOU_ took all my light!”

“I’m so sorry,” Emma said sadly.

While Emma and Lily were catching up, I looped my arm around Mr. Gold’s arm and took him to the side.

“Hey,” I whispered, “can _Lily_ turn into a dragon now?”

“Not _now_ ,” Mr. Gold said, “we’ll have to go to Storybrooke first. There’s magic in Storybrooke, not in this land.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “there’s magic, but only in a certain place?”

“Something like that,” he answered smiling at me.

“Why?” I looked at my dream-guide, Mr. Gold. “This dream is becoming more and more complex,” I muttered to myself.

He sat down and took my arm encouraging me to sit with him.

“Why do you think this is a dream?” He asked.

“OK,” I said. "Let’s say this is not a dream. Why did I lose my memories then?”

He looked at me, contemplating. He seemed to be warring with himself. He didn’t seem to like it that I thought it all was a dream or that I was crazy.

“Tell me the truth!” I suddenly felt the need to demand it.

“You, uh,” he started hesitantly, Storybrooke has magic. It’s really true. But because of that, anyone who leaves town forgets who they were-“

“Did you…”

“I did not lose my memories,” he said, fingering a rag that he kept draped on his shoulders, “I have a protection. You see, this was my son’s blanket when he was a baby. I made a potion to tether me to this, so I won’t forget myself”

“What about Emma? What is she wearing?”

“Emma was sent to this land without the curse. My son did too, as did Lily. That’s why Maleficent couldn’t come with us.”

“Is there any hope for me ever remembering who I was?”

“I will try to- I hope there is…”

“How are you planning to bring my memory back? With magic?”

He looked at me. I could see the longing on his face, and not for the first time, I wondered what our relationship was before. He remained silent, but I did not let him get away with it.

“How can you help me get my memories back?” I asked.

He looked away, his cheeks becoming red.

“I would court you until…” his blush deepened, but he continued bravely, “until you fall in love with me and kiss me. True loves kiss can-“

I didn’t let him finish talking. I leaned into him and kissed him.

Suddenly, powerful rays of light eminated from our kiss and spread over the entire block. The entire _world_ , it felt like.

The memories filled me like a ton of rainbows and cotton candy. I touched his child’s blanket and squealed in delight, “you found your son!”

He looked at me in disbelief. His emotion so intense, he could not even talk.

I didn’t need him to talk. I kissed him deeply again and we stayed like that for so long that we didn’t notice the large amount of spectators we had.

When we finally pulled apart and looked around, we were surprised to see lights like fireworks and rainbows all over the place. Everything looked magical around us and –

And Rumple, yes I finally remembered, his name was Rumple, looked around and his expression became as horrified as it was happy.

“Oh no!” He exclaimed.

“What,” I asked, still giddy with having all my memories back.

“Now there’s magic _everywhere_!”

“So?”

“Bae _hates_ magic,” he wailed.

“He’s going to have to learn to like it,” Emma said walking toward us with a big smile. “Let’s go home.”

(Prolog: Lily _did_ turn into a dragon for us, and before the year was done, we all moved to Tallahassee together and lived happily ever after. )

**********


End file.
